TRAETTA: Antigona.(Review)

TRAETTA: Antigona [] Bayo, Panzarella, Polverelli; Allemano, Ragon; Choeur de Chambre Accentus, Equilbey; Les Talens Lyriques, Rousset. Text and translations. Decca 460 204-2

Even as tragedies go, Sophocles's Antigone is notably cruel, climaxing with the heroine's suicide after her uncle has condemned her to be buried alive. The play examines the conflicting claims of the family and the state, whose values are called into question by Antigone, a young woman fiercely devoted to her clan and scandalously autonomous ("a law unto herself"). Strange, then, to encounter in the opera Antigona by Tommaso Traetta (1727-79) a version of the story ending with blundered suicide attempts, a last-minute reprieve and songs in praise of love's sweetness. Librettist Marco Coltellini's "happy" ending spares the life of Sophocles's defiant maiden, who is instead handed off to a husband by her contrite and magnanimous uncle. An enlightened resolution or reactionary twaddle? Listeners will decide for themselves.

Implausible though it may be, Antigona's ending does yield some of Traetta's most handsome music: the sober, intricate chaconne with which the festivities come to an end, as well as the ensemble writing in the finale, in which the voices of Antigona, Creonte (her uncle) and Emone (her fiance) weave and soar in melodies of chaste, majestic beauty. A contemporary of Gluck, Traetta was a cosmopolitan fellow: he ...